Every morning I wake up to a pile of notes that I’ve dropped on the floor from my bed the night before as I don’t like to keep anything in my head so I have a running chance of falling asleep. My M.O. is to scribble things down as soon as I think of them anyway so no brain space is occupied with to do lists or thoughts of any kind and creative ideas have ultimate room to race around and breed.
In general, I’m better at tackling things in the morning than letting them make mush of whatever brain cells are left by midnight but I will remember nothing unless it’s immortalized in solid print somewhere. This method works fine for me but it’s a horrifying sight every morning to see the river of notes that await me and threaten to overtake my day. So they all end up under this handy little 1950’s transparent plastic “Don’t Forget” hand that psychologically improves my mood just looking at it holding the tasks in place that lie before me.
Of course, within days the girth of the pile is enough to tip “Don’t Forget” over but I love the feel of the lightweight hand made in Hong Kong and never mind picking it up and rifling through the first couple of notes to see if there’s anything I can stand doing at the moment, thereby whacking away at the pile.
But most of the time I just spend looking at the delicate hand and ever-growing pile it’s meant to serve and protect. Everything eventually ends up getting done and I enjoy crumpling up the tasks and throwing them into the shredder so that they may eventually return to their natural pristine paper state and I can start scribbling on them all over again so my third hand has something to do.
Cindy
Reminds me of Rowan and Martin’s “Fickle Finger of Fate” from their show “Laugh In”.
Mary Lynn
I have an original “Don’t Forget” white ceramic hand with a clip attached. I rescued it from my Grandma’s treasures as my parents were sorting the ‘keep’ and ‘Goodwill’ pile. It was a definitely a keeper in my book, and I have it on display. I love it! I think your paperweight lost the clip . . .
Allee
Just saw this comment. I don’t know how I missed it before. Would love to see your “Don’t Forget” white ceramic hand. If you have a photo of it please post it in The Allee Willis Museum Of Kitsch at AWMOK.com. Direct link to upload is https://www.alleewillis.com/awmok/kitschenette/how-to-submit/. Did you keep any more of your Grandma’s treasures?
Shredder
Reading this i finally took a break from this work. I run a hardware store, and i get kinda stress throughout the day =) this page just provided me a few minutes of relax =) I managed to find a rss feed on your site, so that i could subscribe for some more. Ill be sure to come here more often from now on ^__^